Maria Rentetzi

Maria Rentetzi is Professor for Science, Technology, and Gender Studies (chair) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). Her research focuses on two intertwined areas of inquiry: the investigation of the politically and historically situated character of technoscience and the critical examination of gender as a major analytic category in technoscientific endeavors. Her current research focus is on the history of radiation protection and the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency in setting radiation standards after World War II. Also, together with Dr. Donatella Germanese, she works on a collective volume entitled Science Diplomacy on Display. The book follows mobile atomic exhibitions as they move across national borders and around the world functioning as spaces for diplomatic encounters that move within political and scientific networks of exchange and circulation. She has also curated the 101 Notes on Oriental Tobacco, a museum exhibition on tobacco technologies and gender practices.

Rentetzi has been guest professor at TU Berlin (2019–2020), professor at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) Greece, and Silverman Professor at Tel Aviv University in Israel (2018). She has been trained as a physicist at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece, received her MA in History of Science and Technology from the NTUA, and a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Tech, USA. She has been a Postdoctoral Fellow and guest scholar at the MPIWG, and a Lise-Meitner Fellow of the Austrian Science Fund. Rentetzi received the highly prestigious humanities prize, the Gutenberg e-prize of the American Historical Society, and most recently an ERC Consolidator grant (HRP-IAEA, Grant agreement ID: 770548). Through her ERC project she currently leads the development of what she calls “The Diplomatic Studies of Science.” This is a highly interdisciplinary field of research at the intersection of science and technology studies, history of science, diplomatic history, political sciences, and international affairs. Rentetzi is also corresponding member of the International Academy of History of Science, member of Academia-Net (nominated by Austrian Science Fund as an excellent female researcher), council member of the IUHPST/DHST, and founding member and treasurer of the Association of ERC Grantees.

Selected Publications

Rentetzi, Maria (forthcoming 2022). Seduced by Radium: How Industry Transformed Science in the American Marketplace. University of Pittsburgh Press.

Rentetzi, Maria & Ito, Kenji (Eds.). (2021). "The Material Culture and Politics of Artifacts in Nuclear Diplomacy" [Special Issue]. Centaurus, 63(2).

Rentetzi, Maria & Ito, Kenji (2021). “The Co-Production of Nuclear Science and Diplomacy: Towards a Transnational Understanding of Nuclear Things.” History and Technology, 37(1). doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2021.190546

Rentetzi, Maria (2021). “With Strings Attached: Gift-Giving to the International Atomic Energy Agency and US Foreign Policy.” Endeavour, 45(1–2). doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2021.100754